Autism, Depression, and Chronic Pain – Oh My!

Spiritual or Inspirational

Every once in a while I have a dream where I realize in the middle of it that I am dreaming and I have the ability to take the dream over and do whatever I want to do. Last night this happened again. I became aware that I was dreaming and that nothing I saw around me was real, but instead of deciding to fly off to some other land or into outer space, I decided to stick around the environment I was already in and see what my sleeping mind had conjured up out of nothing.

It was actually rather fascinating to study the “set” of my dream. I noticed all the little details – the plants (color/shape/flowers), I noticed how a few rocks were randomly scattered over the ground and even counted them, wondering if the number had any significance. I felt the textures around me, including puffy cotton balls growing off to the side, marveling at how real it felt to my touch, even though I knew none of it was real.

I wish I remembered every single detail that I studied, but like most dreams, once I woke up, bits of it started to fade like wisps of smoke. I do remember it was an outdoor setting obviously and there was a small bridge and a stream of water. I would almost say it was a little like a Monet water garden painting.

It always interested me that I’ve heard some experts claim we don’t dream in color, but if that is true, they obviously have never visited my dreams!!! I feel texture, pain, and pleasure in my dreams. I taste. I smell. I hear. When I am there, it is just as real as where I am right this minute.

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Here is what I wrote on my Facebook page today, I think it pretty much sums it all up:

Six long years, and I finally won my SSDI case! Fully favorable! Feel like crying and screaming. Been sick and in pain so long, sometimes I wanted to give up hope and die, but glad I hung in there.

All those people who doubted me or thought I was just being “lazy” or “dramatic” can kiss my ass. To all those who have showed love, empathy, and encouragement, thank you so much for helping to keep me alive and fighting.

My fellow bloggers here on WordPress definitely fall into the second category of supportive, encouraging people, so thank you all so much!!!

By the way, the decision was just made yesterday and my lawyer was the one who called and told me, so it will still be a little while before I get the back pay or monthly payments started, but I’m on my way!

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I was feeling really depressed when I made this mixed media ACEO artist trading card. I originally wrote “I don’t matter” because that was how I was feeling, but after finishing the abstract artwork, I decided I didn’t want to leave such a negative message permanently. So, I took out my black pen, marked out the “don’t”, and underlined the words “I matter”. Just doing that small thing made me feel a bit better and like maybe I do matter more than I give myself credit for…

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I took the above picture at the Indianapolis Children’s Museum we visited a couple weeks ago. Anubis has always been one of my favorite mythological Gods. Him and Bastet are definitely my favorite Egyptian gods/goddesses, although Thoth is up there on my list as well.

In case you are unfamiliar with Anubis, he is the one often shown with the black dog head. He was the God of embalming and the dead, and the lord of the underworld until later replaced by Osiris. It is believed that he was shown with a black jackal head because jackals were often seen in cemeteries at the time.

Anubis also attended the “weighing of the heart” after someone died, to see if that person was pure enough to enter the underworld (Duat as it was called back then). Each person’s heart was weighed against Ma’at (truth) represented by a feather. If the person’s heart was light and pure, they would go on to a heavenly afterlife, but if their heart was heavy and evil, they would be devoured by Ammit (the demonic devourer of the dead).

As much of Greek mythology was inspired by Egyptian mythology, I always see the figure of Hades as an outgrowth of the figure of Anubis (with some Osiris thrown in too, but after all, Anubis WAS lord of the underworld first!)

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It took all day for this video to upload onto YouTube lol, but I wanted to share in case anyone wanted to see what I got in this particular subscription box this month. It is the first time I’ve gotten this particular new age/spiritual box and I did enjoy it, although their past boxes looked a little better to me overall. Will definitely give it at least one more try though.

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I’ve started livestreaming on my YouTube channel just for something to do and another way to connect with people. I’m doing most of the streams on my personal channel, rather than my toys and books channel. My personal channel has a lot less subs (around 200 compared to over 3,000), so if you are a YouTube watcher, please consider subbing to my channel! Here are a couple recent livestreams if you are interested:

The YouTube playback for the livestreams is a bit blurrier than normal vids, but I’m working on that! You probably want to watch them in the highest quality available to minimize blurriness.

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This month I decided to try a different pagan-themed subscription box through Cratejoy. This is the Magickal Folk Meditation Kit subscription box that is only $7 + S&H. One thing I love about the Magickal Folk series is that they have a wide selection of boxes to choose from at different prices, so if you simply want Ritual Teas, Crystals, Meditation Rituals, or bigger combo boxes, you can get exactly what you want without paying for more.

The kit I chose is a small kit that comes with a specific meditation and ritual to perform each month, with a few little magickal tools to perform the ritual. This month’s theme was Brigid’s Blessing and came with a winter-themed meditation card, two beautiful tumbled milk quartz stones in a pretty little maroon pouch, a white satin spell ribbon that says “As it is” and “So it will be” at opposite ends, and a large packet of Goddess Blessing Salts made with dandelion root powder & cut leaf, blessed thistle herb, and sea salt.

The ritual suggests you take the ribbon out to a natural place and tie it to a tree, but right now I can’t bring myself to part from it, so I am using it as a decoration on my altar:

One thing I especially love about the meditation card is that it comes with a few journaling prompts for further reflection. So far I love this subscription box and will stay subscribed. It is a good price for a small monthly reminder to take the time to meditate and celebrate my connection to the earth and nature.

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Yesterday I logged into my Kindle Direct Publishing account on Amazon and while looking at the reports, noticed there is a new “beta” reporting program they are working on that I could test (the picture above shows the new graphing, with part of the book breakdown below). I checked it out and it is WAY better than their old reporting program! It uses color coded graphs to plainly show which books you are selling, when you are selling them, and also easily separates books sold from “free” promotions vs. paid sales.

I am thrilled they are updating their system, because what they have had the last few years sucks in my opinion. It was hard to even tell which books sold! In other good news, while checking out the new system, I looked at my overall numbers from the last quarter and was pleasantly surprised to see that all together I’ve sold more than 230 ebooks (including promotions) during the last 90 days! Not bad for an indie author!!! It makes my heart happy to know that many people are reading my books!

If you use KDP publishing, I would recommend checking out the new program if you are able to under your own reports! By the way, if you want to check out my Amazon Author Page and maybe give it a follow, that would be awesome! I also have a FREE ebook promotion running today through Monday for my art ebook, “Stories Behind My Art” (if you like it, please consider leaving a review on Amazon!)

Lastly, a few years back, I published a little short story/spiritual ebook called “Jesus, Mohammed, and Abraham – A Parable about Love and Peace” under the name M.N. Russell ($0.99, FREE for Kindle Unlimited) . I decided to add that to my Amazon author bibliography, so you can check that out if you think it sounds interesting!

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Last month I attended a class developed to help you improve your “psychic abilities”. Partly, I decided to try it out just for fun and to see what would happen, and partly I have always been interested in the paranormal, whether it be ghosts, ufos, psychic abilities, time travel, near death experiences, cryptids, etc.

So, what happened? I will only share my personal experiences, nothing about anyone else at the meeting or any specific teaching. We did several kinds of exercises and a meditation period. I think the weirdest experience I had the entire class was when we did a practice where the leader would share a hidden word and we all tried to intuitively figure out how that hidden word made us feel.

We did this quite a few times, and only once did I have a strong physical reaction to the hidden word. For this particular word, my hair literally started standing on end on my arms and I got goosebumps. I thought it was weird and showed everyone else in the class. This didn’t happen for any of the other words. When the leader revealed that word, it was “evil”. Kind of interesting, huh?

For the other hidden words, I often was pretty accurate about the feeling I got from it, although none of the others gave me the visceral physical reaction “evil” did. We also did some practices where the leader tried to “create” colored balls of light energy and we tried to intuitively figure out what color the balls were. I was surprised how accurate I was on these too, even when I kept feeling it was white, though I didn’t think white was technically a color, so figured that couldn’t be right….however, turned out the instructor had chosen white lol. I even came up with purple and silver when the instructor decided to challenge us and pick two colors at once.

I’m not claiming to be super psychic or anything, although I have always felt I was rather empathic. I think I might keep going to these classes simply to see what happens and because it was rather fun.